Et Tu Tunisia? 'Blasphemy' Punishment in Liberated Tunisia

On the heels of the three year prison sentence dispensed by an Egyptian court to a17 year-old Coptic Christian boy for allegedly publishing "blasphemous" cartoons on his Facebook page, comes this story from liberated Tunisia, home of the "Jasmine revolution" which inspired the Arab Spring.
As reported (4/5/12) by Al Arabiya, according to the Tunisian justice ministry, a Tunisian court has sentenced two young men, both in their late twenties, to seven years in prison for publishing caricatures of the Islam's prophet Muhammad. Ministry spokesman Chokri Nefti, noting that the sentence was handed down late last month, also stated
They were sentenced, one of them in absentia, to seven years in prison, for transgressing morality, defamation and disrupting public order.
One of the defendants, self-described atheist, Ghazi Beji, who wrote a book entitled, "The Illusion of Islam," released his work on the naïve assumption that the much ballyhooed Jasmine Revolution had actually established...(Read Full Post)